On Thursday, February 28, 2019, Congressman Langevin (D-R) and the Congressional Caucus for Foster Youth held a briefing on “Unregulated Custody Transfers of Adopted Youth: Understanding and Preventing “Rehoming.” Panelists included Maureen Flatley, Former Ambassador Susan S. Jacobs, Department of State, Nhi Nguyen, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Trish Maskew, Department of State, Julie Rosicky, International Social Services, and Joy Alessi, Adoptee.

Flatley, who moderated the briefing, stated that adoption is seen as a state issue when it should be an intrastate issue. She said that there must be a federal response to the issue. Jacobs said the “rehoming” of children needs to stop. She discussed the importance of protecting children, strengthening home studies, and studying the families who are adopting. She also said that there are more protocols when adopting a dog from a shelter then there are on adopting a child.

The topic received some national recognition after a 2013 Reuters report that analyzed posts over the internet over a five-year period. The posts involved making children available online from one family to another. The vast majority of children subjected to such postings were adopted from overseas. The State Department oversees accreditation requirements for agencies and other parties that facilitate international adoptions. Child welfare agencies focus on the adoption of children from foster care. The adoption requirements are more rigorous regarding these child welfare adoptions including minimum training and home studies of perspective parents.

According to the GAO report,

“Many stakeholders we interviewed—including officials from selected states, child welfare and adoption organizations, and adoption agencies— expressed concern with the adequacy of the information provided to prospective parents on the behavioral and mental health conditions of a child adopted internationally. Access to accurate information is critical to ensuring that a family is aware of the type of ongoing support they may need for the child. However, officials from 11 of 19 child welfare and adoption organizations and 5 of 15 adoption agencies said families who adopt internationally often do not receive complete information on a child’s medical and behavioral needs before adopting. State Department officials explained that some low-income countries lack sufficient mental health care providers, making it difficult for international adoption agencies to ensure that children are accurately evaluated prior to adoption.”

Adopted people will no longer have to sign an undertaking that they won’t contact their natural parents

Adopted men and women will no longer be forced to sign an “undertaking” saying they won’t contact their natural parents in order to get access to their birth cert information under proposals approved by Cabinet on Tuesday.

TDs and lobby groups expressed concerns with the provision contained in the Adoption and Information Tracing Bill which is currently making its way through the Oireachtas.

The proposed law would give adopted children access to information on their birth as well as providing access to birth certificate information for adopted people who found out that they had been wrongly registered as the biological children of their adoptive parents.

Ms Zappone received the backing of the Cabinet on Tuesday to draft amendments on the controversial aspects of the law.

A controversial provision requiring adopted people to sign an “undertaking” to not contact their birth parents in order to receive their birth information has been removed from the Government’s planned information and tracing legislation.

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone confirmed Government approval to draft amendments to revise the privacy provisions in the long-promised legislation.

Under the bill up to now, adopted people would be entitled to their birth information only if they sign a formal undertaking that they “will not contact, or attempt to contact, the birth mother, birth father, or relevant guardian concerned”.

The revised legislation will replace the current provisions, including the undertaking, and will provide for contact with all birth parents to ascertain whether they have any objection to the birth information being released.

Where the parent does not consent to the release of the information, both parties will make their case before the Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI).

A 47-year-old woman from the Philippines has admitted having bought a baby in her home country and presenting a fake a birth certificate naming herself as the mother and a Cypriot man as the father, the Nicosia criminal court heard on Wednesday.

The woman was arrested last month after suspicion that two men in a same sex partnership had illegally adopted a baby brought to Cyprus by a woman from the Philippines.

Police told court on Wednesday that the woman had given a false statement that she was the mother of an infant born in July 2017 in the Philippines and had presented a fake birth certificate that said she was the mother of the child and a Cypriot man the father.

The woman admitted to buying the baby in the Philippines and bringing it to Cyprus to be illegally adopted and that the documents she had presented to the Cypriot authorities were fake, the court heart.

She is facing 19 charges concerning child trafficking. If found guilty of child trafficking, she could be sentenced up to 20 years in prison.

The rescue became possible due to timely information by a government doctor.

Preliminary inquiries by the DCPU staff and police revealed that the child’s mother resides in a village under the jurisdiction of the Boothapandi police station. The woman aged around 30-years-old has a 12-year-old daughter and her husband was working abroad. She developed an extramarital affair with a man in that locality, resulting in her pregnancy. This resulted in the family distancing themselves from her. Recommended By Colombia.

The woman’s husband refused to take care of her when she became pregnant. After the delivery, the man who was the cause of her pregnancy also refused to take care of her. She underwent check-up in the government primary health centre (PHC) where the doctor came to know of her background and alerted the DCPU. DCPU officials gave her counselling and asked her to give her baby for legal adoption if she could not raise it.

On January 19, 2019, the woman gave birth to the baby in the Asaripallam Government Medical College and Hospital in Nagercoil. DCPU officials conducted follow-up checks on January 20 and 28 and found the baby in the possession her mother. On February 21, the PHC staff went to her house on a field visit and found that the baby was not with the mother. This was brought to the notice of the DCPU.

During inquiry with the woman the woman produced a stamp paper saying she has wilfully given her daughter for adoption to a couple from Manavalakurichi area in Kanyakumari district, who did not have children. District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) of Kanyakumari district S Kumuda told TOI that they had told her that this was illegal adoption and conducted inquiries with her.

Prosecution trial: Gunther and Oana Krichbaum fight back

For four hours, a clutter of e-mails, printouts, newspaper articles, names, quotes, and more than 800 online posts on Wednesday left the judiciary busy. At the district court Pforzheim a 46-year-old German with Romanian roots had to answer for allegations of libel and slander against public figures. The CDU Bundestag member Gunther Krichbaum and his wife, lawyer Oana Krichbaum, had filed a complaint.

According to the indictment, the woman from the Enzkreis has since 2012 referred to Oana Krichbaum publicly on Facebook as a "children's graphic artist". According to the posts, she was involved in illegal child trafficking in the 1990s, and her husband prevented the clarification by his political weight, summarized prosecutor Marius Walz. A thicket of missing connections and sources that do not exist, tried to penetrate Judge Patrick Stemler. Four Facebook posts were scrutinized.

It caused a sensation that the defendant had submitted fake documents in support of their statement. She himself attacked Walz as well as interjections and questions several times the threat of regulatory fees. "Now there are no more questions, otherwise I'll leave the room," eventually even her own defender Florian Bähr made air, who had his hands full to keep his client in check.

The same morning, a ruling in civil proceedings in the same case should have fallen in the second instance at the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe. Until it is present, those responsible did not want to make a decision. The process will continue on Friday, March 15, at 9 o'clock.

MADURAI: The District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) in Kanyakumari and police rescued a one-month-old girl baby after she had been given for illegal adoption by mother.

The rescue became possible due to timely information by a government doctor.

Preliminary inquiries by the DCPU staff and police revealed that the child’s mother resides in a village under the jurisdiction of the Boothapandi police station. The woman aged around 30-years-old has a 12-year-old daughter and her husband was working abroad. She developed an extramarital affair with a man in that locality, resulting in her pregnancy. This resulted in the family distancing themselves from her.

The woman’s husband refused to take care of her when she became pregnant. After the delivery, the man who was the cause of her pregnancy also refused to take care of her. She underwent check-up in the government primary health centre (PHC) where the doctor came to know of her background and alerted the DCPU. DCPU officials gave her counselling and asked her to give her baby for legal adoption if she could not raise it.

On January 19, 2019, the woman gave birth to the baby in the Asaripallam Government Medical College and Hospital in Nagercoil. DCPU officials conducted follow-up checks on January 20 and 28 and found the baby in the possession her mother. On February 21, the PHC staff went to her house on a field visit and found that the baby was not with the mother. This was brought to the notice of the DCPU.

Children should not suffer from identity crisis

Wahida Banu

Birth Registra-tion of children is a means to access the basic services and facilities available at the community level to nurture and exercise their rights. It is the key to ensuring the rights of the child.

A birth certificate serves as a legal age verification document acknowledging the individuals existence and status before the law. It is urgent that boys and girls to be identified as the citizens of the country. Birth Registration is now compulsory for every citizen to receive sixteen basic services in the country.

These are; passport, marriage registration, admission to school and college, applying for job, driving license, over ID, land registration, opening a bank account, import and export license, getting water, gas and electric connections, tax identification number(TIN), contractor license, approval of the home design, vehicle registration, trade license and getting on the national voter list.

A new government proposal could ease the path for authorities to force adoption of children whose parents are not deemed able to take charge of their care.

Under current rules, very few situations can result in parents being required by law to give up their children for adoption.

But proposed new rules would make the option an easier one for authorities to take, newspaper Berlingske reports.

Forced adoptions could occur in cases in which parents are not deemed able to continue as guardians, the newspaper writes.

The proposal, which was scheduled for parliamentary procedure on Tuesday, was tabled by Minister for Children and Social Affairs Mai Mercado. The minister said she wants an easier process for authorities taking the measure of forced adoption.

The government have declared their intention to change the Children's Amendment Bill. But critics fear it could crush the adoption system.

You don’t get many warnings sterner than this. But Western Cape Minister for Social Development Albert Fritz has gone in hard with his criticism of the Children’s Amendment Bill – a change to current legislation that he believes would be the beginning of the end for adoption in South Africa.

What is the Children’s Amendment Bill?

He makes the extraordinary claim just a day after the bill was gazetted by the ANC. The bill sets out a number of provisions and changes to existing legal frameworks, listing the following as its main objectives:

Promote and protect a child’s right to physical and psychological integrity.